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Jack William Bell
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Whenever you are past the edge, out in the wind, look for me. NOTICE: All posts by this account are copyright to the author (Jack William Bell) and may be shared and remixed by human beings. Any use in Large Language Models or other AI training is specifically disallowed and considered an egregious violation of copyright. IMPORTANT! Do not boost or mention this account if you are using a bridge to a commercial service, like Bluesky or Threads.

> Why people are reluctant to call themselves atheists. https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/10/us/atheism-beliefs-explained-cec/index.html

This article goes into some depth about the squishy difference between an atheist and an agnostic. I'm the latter, because I am not sure of *anything* and think anyone who is sure of anything needs to spend some time learning about quantum physics.

But I'm not here to talk about that. I'm posting this so I can tell a story…

[contd]

#HumanCondition #atheism

Replying to Avatar Dan Lyke

nostr:npub1a3xmjrlk9d5sx268p4hth78n7rswndax2f7w8kdtcsfk537ptgyqh4x4qp yeah, California definitely has OHV fuel sold with different tax rates. I don't know if that's with the federal taxes, I suspect it's without...

nostr:npub10fmsw3ukhmqnnsjmalfekl6j4cucxvfl50he9dmqcna36a99nf6s8zx0qg

Separately, there's the whole question of funding externalities – such as a carbon surcharge.

Best if you could get the extraction industry to pay an externalities tax, but not gonna happen. Easier, if more of a political football, to push it to the end users.

For carbon only, one gallon of gas burnt results in 20 pounds of CO/CO2. Carbon offset costs are currently ~$8 a ton, but expected to rise a lot over the next few years.

> https://climatekids.nasa.gov/review/carbon/gasoline.html

> https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/blog/carbon-offsets-price-may-rise-3000-by-2029-under-tighter-rules/

nostr:npub10fmsw3ukhmqnnsjmalfekl6j4cucxvfl50he9dmqcna36a99nf6s8zx0qg

I've often argued that, over and above other fuel taxes there should be a $5 surcharge for mass transit. Both to build out mass transit and to drive it's usage as a money-saver.

nostr:npub10fmsw3ukhmqnnsjmalfekl6j4cucxvfl50he9dmqcna36a99nf6s8zx0qg

Also, is that $1.12 on top of or inclusive of the Federal tax?

Here in WA the tax rate is just under 50 cents a gallon, but with the Federal tax it's ~68 cents.

> https://dor.wa.gov/taxes-rates/tax-incentives/deductions/motor-vehicle-fuel-tax-rates

That said, there are tons of businesses who can get partial or full refunds of the State fuel taxes for fuel used in a off-highway manner. I'll bet CA does the same.

> https://www.dol.wa.gov/vehicles-and-boats/taxes-fuel-tax-and-other-fees/fuel-tax/fuel-tax-facts#fueltaxrefunds

nostr:npub10fmsw3ukhmqnnsjmalfekl6j4cucxvfl50he9dmqcna36a99nf6s8zx0qg

I've often argued that, over and above other fuel taxes there should be a $5 surcharge for mass transit. Both to build out mass transit and to drive it's usage as a money-saver.

Unless you are really old *and* a computer geek you probably have no idea what dBase is. I'm both and I actually wrote code for dBase II on CP/M systems and dBase III (plus variants) on MS/DOS PCs back in the 1980s.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBase

Turns out? It's still around. 😲

> Welcome to dBASE® 2019… https://www.dbase.com/

> dBase Classic. https://dbaseclassic.com/

Do I recommend it?

No, not really. There's a reason why you probably haven't heard of it.

#programming #database #history #WTF